


Tropospheric Disturbance

by picnokinesis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Decisions, Destruction of Gallifrey, F/M, Facing the consequences of aforementioned bad decisions, I wasn't going to tag it as thoschei because I didn't really think it was, Other, Terrible attempts at communication, The Master pretends to be O, and then I reread it and thought hmmmmmm, or rather he tried, overuse of meteorological imagery, taka suffers whilst being unable to use italics as a crutch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picnokinesis/pseuds/picnokinesis
Summary: He opens his eyes, and she is hovering above him, storm-coloured eyes filled with an emotion he can’t name. The room is white behind her. His chest is burning.He’s been dragged into the medical bay.A continuation of Fracture by Quantuniverse, written for the DW Creators Style Swap Challenge
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91
Collections: DW Creators Writing Style Swap





	Tropospheric Disturbance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quandtuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quandtuniverse/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fracture](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288648) by [Quandtuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quandtuniverse/pseuds/Quandtuniverse). 



> Hey everyone! So this fic is going to be very different to any of my other writing, because it’s not written in my style! I signed up to take part in the Writing Style Swap that was being hosted in the DW Creators discord server – with much trepidation, I might add, but I was lucky enough to be given Quandtuniverse, my wonderful friend and excellent writer. This fic is a continuation from their amazing fic, Fracture, where the Master doesn’t reveal himself at the end of Spyfall and pretends to be a human companion. I highly recommend you read Fracture first because 1) it’s really great 2) this will not make much sense otherwise. 
> 
> And so – this fic does *not* contain overuse of italics, nor does it go on for about 10k, but it *does* have excessive references to Brazilian music (such as [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2EPuZ9H2rM) and [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXc6Z-mhSqI)), a ton of metaphors, brief allusions to classic dystopian literature, and a lot of references to QU’s brilliant poem [Ash and Bone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22627075). This exists specifically to hurt QU I hope y’all enjoy

• • • •

One more time –

The light is bright, a burning orange through his closed eyelids. Any moment now, he’ll open them, face what awaits him on the other side.

He’s in unknown territory, unchartered waters. He’s so used to being two steps ahead, twisting timelines to align to his advantage, that this feels unnatural. Off-balance. It was supposed to be easy. His plan had been flawless, guaranteed outcomes stretched out before him, wide and clear as the outback sky.

He opens his eyes, and she is hovering above him, storm-coloured eyes filled with an emotion he can’t name. The room is white behind her. His chest is burning.

He’s been dragged into the medical bay.

He looks at her eyes again, and he sees that she knows. If he’d had any doubts before, any hopes that his cover had remained intact, they’re squandered now. Shattered at his feet, along with the remains of his perfectly crafted timeline. His plan.

“It’s you,” she says simply. Devastating.

The Master smiles. “Got you,” he whispers. 

It doesn’t feel how he’d imagined it would.

He’d planned this moment, dreamt it up, spent hours pouring over the details. He’d known just how she’d look, pictured the shock on her face as he bested her, each piece so carefully placed that she’d never see the checkmate coming until it was too late.

But now he’s here, the scene is inverted. She’s the one just a step away from victory, and neither of them had realised it.

“Why’d you do it?” she asks. Her eyes are searching his face, desperate, and he is ever the horizon watcher, gazing at the storm above him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Once, he would have revelled in the look on her face. But he’s become far too entangled in the role he’s chosen to play to remember how he’s supposed to feel.

But she can’t know the truth. She can’t find out how the timeline had stretched out before him, pristine and perfect, and how he let it collapse underneath him. All so he could have her attention.

She can’t know how close she is to winning.

He sits up, against the pain. Their faces are almost pressed together.

“Because where would be the fun in that?”

• • • •

The others are looking at him with confusion. But he doesn’t have to pretend to care about them anymore – he keeps his eyes fixed on her, leaning on the console for support. She stands on the other side, and as long as she’s there, he can orientate himself. Determine his relative position in space and time.

Her eyes meet his. Thunder rumbles.

“So, let me get this straight,” says Graham. “Orwell’s an alien now?”

“He always was,” the Doctor replies, her voice low. She’s staring at him, meeting his eyes with a strong gaze.

He’s still got her attention.

“Is he like you?” Ryan says. “Yaz said he had –”

“Two hearts,” the last pet finishes. “But it’s more than that. She knows him.”

Clever Yaz.

The Doctor’s eyes are still fixed on him. “ _Why?”_ she asks him again. “You’ve always got a reason. A plan _._ Why?”

A grin cracks across his face. “Oh come on, Doctor. You know our game by now.”

But he’s changed the game, and neither of them know what the rules are anymore.

“Doctor,” Yaz says. She breaks her stare to glance over, and his smiles drops. He curses her incessant adoration of humanity. “Who is he?”

“An old friend.” She cast her gaze down. “My oldest friend. Last time I saw him, she – he turned his back on me.”

The past calls to him, the first warning drops of rain. He hadn’t turned his back. But, of course, she hadn’t seen. She never did see him, until the last moment. Always so quick to assume the worst of him.

“And what happened?” Yaz asks.

But none of that matters now.

“I died.”

She’s looking at him again.

His grin returns. “And so did I.”

• • • •

She doesn’t know what to do with him – or herself. She hides, burying her head in needless repairs. He seeks, not about to let her get away with it easily. Yaz, Graham and Ryan weather the storm together, huddling in the kitchen and whispering. He avoids them.

They ask too many questions. 

They think he’s still Orwell.

Once, he would have used the opportunity to twist their rose-tinted view of her. He would have shown them the truth, torn off the mask she wears. She makes herself dull for them, restrained, and he would have shown them her full fury. That is why he hates them more than anything. A tempest should never be tamed.

But he won’t waste his time on them.

An electric shock from the console is warning enough against trying to land the TARDIS. And she’s parked them in deep space, so there isn’t anywhere he can wander off to. This is how he justifies it to himself when he goes looking for her.

Her hands falter when he leans against the doorframe, tangled in wires.

He waits for her to speak.

“Where are you?” she asks, her voice ringing with an emotion he can’t name. Perhaps hope – or fear. “In our timeline. I want to know.”

He moves from the door, buzzing with anticipation and desperation and rage, the perpetual rage. Or maybe it’s just the pain, the healing injury bristling in his chest. He crouches beside her.

“I think you already know, love,” he says.

She looks at him, and his breath catches. Her eyes are blazing like a bonfire of forbidden books, and all he wants is to read every page.

“You turned your back on me,” she says, choking on the smoke of her own inferno. “I thought you changed. But you betrayed me, and I thought all of it, the Vault, was all just for nothing, and I _died._ Alone.”

Her words are sparks, and one catches on his rage. He leans forwards, his face up against hers.

“You _always_ die,” he snarls. She’s always died, and always will, over and over and over until the universe is so cold and dark that there is nothing but the bursts of black holes evaporating. He hates her for it more than he can stand. “It’s the only thing you know how to do. Haven’t you got it yet? Don’t you realise this is how it works? I do something unforgivable, you come and ruin my fun, I kill you, you regenerate and you _leave._ That’s how this works, love.”

But he’s knocked them off course, and the timeline is falling apart around him. He can feel it. She must feel it too.

Her eyes are fixed on his. “What did you do?”

She’s focusing on the wrong thing, but of course, she would.

“Don’t think I’ll tell you,” he says, a smile cracking across his face. A laugh bursts out of his mouth because it feels right, and everything about this is so wrong.

“Orwell –”

“That’s not my name,” he spits. 

“What did you _do?_ ”

He stands, turning his back on her as he strides away.

Footsteps echo behind him against the corridor plating.

“Tell me,” she hisses. Lightning crackles in her tone.

Despite himself, he turns. He’s still entangled in everything he’s not supposed to be. But he’s also still two steps ahead, as long as he can keep his lead. Even if his lead is nothing more than arbitrary now. The storm is coming, inevitable as she always is. But the horizon watcher knows that better than anyone.

He’s prepared, even if his plans have crumbled by his own hands. He still has his main card left to play.

“When did you last go home?” he asks. Their eyes meet.

“What do you mean?”

The timeline twists under his tongue, and this time, he has no idea where it leads.

“What else would I mean?”

She tugs at his arm, fingers finding his wrist. The drums beat under his skin pounds it’s constant ostinato. A reminder of everything the timelords did to him.

But she had to go and overshadow that as well, didn’t she? She doesn’t even know it.

The anger is still burning. He needs her to see. To hurt as he hurts; to rage as he rages.

His hand twists, trapping her wrist in his grasp.

“I really think we should take a look.”

• • • •

One more time –

Last time he had stood alone in the dust, the living epicentre of Gallifrey’s destruction. The smoke had smelt so sweet to him – the falling ash had been ethereal.

It’s suffocating now.

She trails a silent path, nothing but dust in her wake. He follows just behind.

Future and past meaning nothing here. The Web of Time is threaded into the fabric of this place, even with the city above it destroyed. This moment is also every moment that has been and every moment that ever will. And they stand side by side. The two destroyers of worlds.

She is staring at his masterpiece in beautiful horror.

“How?” she mouths, her voice inaudibly scraping at the air. Her next words are louder. “How could this happen?”

“You should know.” His eyes are fixed on her. “You did it the first time.”

She looks at him, and the realisation dawns, and the timeline rumbles above him, threatening.

“You did this.” Simple. Devastating.

He tells himself he’s enjoying this. He almost believes it.

“I did.”

“ _Why?”_

They were supposed to be the same. He thought they were two moons, careening together through the abyss. But that’s always been a lie – she’s always been a singularity and he is merely being dragged into her event horizon, unable to fight the intoxicating gravitational pull.

“I found something,” he growls. “In the Matrix. The high council of Gallifrey lied to us, all of us! The whole society of the timelords is built upon a _lie._ ”

“They’ve always lied,” she replies. Her gaze cuts at him like the shattered glass of the Citadel dome. “Just like how you lie.”

“No!” he snaps. His face is up against hers, noses grazing. “I am nothing like them.”

“I thought you were my friend. For _weeks._ ”

“I _was_ your friend! Before!” he snaps, oh, and it hurts, doesn’t it? That she would only look at him the way he craves when she thought he was human. “You really _believed_ that I had changed, but it only took one lie for you decide I wasn’t worth the effort!”

She stares at him, just how she did when she felt his pulses and realised who he was – when she saw through his crumbling mask. “What are you talking about?”

“My _betrayal,_ ” he sneers, before the truth rips itself from his throat. “It was a lie! I was going to kill him, and stand with you – but you didn’t even come _looking_ for me. You were so ready to believe that I would turn my back on you.”

Her expression is twisted. She’s trying to hide the gathering storm beneath her skin. “You’re lying.”

His face cracks into a grin. Of course, she wouldn’t believe him. He turns away, a manic laugh on his lips which torques into a scream. There’s a pressure in his chest, either from his lingering injury or his own conflicting personas crashing down on top of him. Buried under rubble. 

He falls to his knees, looking to the crumbling Citadel and wondering how much more they can take from him.

“I don’t understand,” she says. She never understands. This isn’t something new. “Any of this. Pretending to be Orwell for so long…”

He says nothing. His plan – the timeline – is so frayed and tangled that even he can no longer discern the pattern.

She crouches beside him with a shuffle of fabric. “What do you want from me? To hate you? To hate them?” She pauses. Her voice is quiet. “To forgive you?”

“Would you?”

She’s silent for a long moment. The seconds stretch out, meaningless in this place.

“It was our home,” she whispers.

“And what’s a home you never return to?” he murmurs, bitter. “What’s a home where you don’t belong?”

“I saved them.” Her voice cracks, and he hates her for it. “I saved them and now they’re gone.”

“Stop it,” he spits. “They don’t deserve your tears.”

“All of them? The children –”

She still has no idea. She’s caught up in her own guilt – her own beautiful devastation in the Time War. She’d twisted the timeline, turning it on its head in her desperation to fix it, to let the dust settle as if it had never been disturbed.

But the dust has never stopped settling. It falls on and on, passing through both of them. And all it finds, after everything, is that it comes down to the two them, alone beneath the ash, the remnants, that quiet sky.

He’d imagined this moment. Dragging her, triumphant, into the Matrix, trapping her in a paralysis field and destroying her, piece by piece. But there is no triumph. Just the terrible ache in his chest and the thunderous look in her eyes.

He reaches for her. His hand is shaking. He tucks a loose hair behind her ear.

The end of the timeline is beautiful and uncertain.

He has her attention.

“Brace yourself,” he says, tender, as he presses his fingers against her temple. Memories, truths and lies are raging within him, the charging lightning before the strike. Everything she needs to know, all in one touch that is more gentle than he ever should have allowed. “This is going to hurt.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought! I've never written from the Master's pov before, so that was an extra challenge on top of the whole style swap thing.
> 
> I'm over at picnokinesis on tumblr if you want to yell


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